Regarding the ending of funding by the Feds for McCollum Field’s air traffic controllers, according to the figures in the MDJ article on Friday the cost is $700,000 annually. With 62,387 take-offs and landings in 2012 the airport could charge airport users $12 per take-off and landing and more than recover that expense. At what it costs to own and fly a plane, that amount would be a drop in the bucket for them.

Why are the people who are able to afford to own planes looking for us taxpayers who do not use the airport to always be paying for them? Surely they see their safety as worth $12 each time they fly in and out of the airport.

Many of the takeoff & landings are folks learning to fly and others provide critical infrastructure (such as rescue helicopters and ga state patrol) a fee per landing would drive folks to other airports and cost the county in safety and revenue. From a distance fees seem like the answer but up close it would be a financial mistake. The airport currently runs without tax dollars. Fees would drop the traffic count so low that fees could not cover the cost and tax dollars would have to step in. Currently 37 rescue and crime flights operate from our airport a day.

If the airport runs without tax dollars, how could the sequester have any effect on it. (Yes, I'm a distant relative of the man after whom the field is named).

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